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Tag Archives: Jeremy Robinson

Willingly suspend your disbelief and you’re in for a crazy-fun ride along the 37th parallel with PI Dan Delgado and his ragtag team on a quest to find a missing child.

Along with his elderly office assistant, a gun-toting pastor, and a fast-talking young Uber driver, Delgado travels to Colorado City, AZ following the trail of an abducted girl. The question soon becomes…abducted by whom…or what?

And Delgado isn’t the only one searching. Some heavily-armed and very skilled paramilitary teams are now after him.

We’ve got plenty of shoot-outs and alien encounters. A righteous cause. Truly funny bits. Characters with just enough depth to save them from being cartoony: Delgado, for instance, is dogged by a personal tragedy that ultimately strengthens him. By the end, hearts and minds alike are opened.

The Others is good-humored and good-hearted. When you pick it up to read the next chapter, you get a weirdly upbeat, anticipatory feeling, like you’re about to eat a plate of your favorite cookies while watching an old-time, action-packed T.V. show from your childhood. Like, maybe the A Team. And that’s a good thing.

In this violent post-apocalyptic world technology is dead, but Vikings are very much alive.

A few wise men with knowledge of the old ways, however, realize that their berserker future is doomed. Unless…

When Val, a brilliant young female fighter with a mysterious background, bests a mountainous challenger she becomes the leader of a fateful mission.

Her task? Travel across the wildly altered and dangerous European landscape to bring back vital genetic material. Val and her small but fierce team of warriors is the only hope for the future of the human race.

Along the way, the group battles everything from mutant horrors to twisted human gangs. Val not only faces threats to her leadership, but also recognizes that their nonstop violent encounters reveal a pattern of betrayal. Val must watch her back to ensure the mission succeeds.

Viking Tomorrow is good fun. It vaguely reminded me – in a good way – of the classic ‘79 film The Warriors – in which a NYC gang fights its way through series of hostile territories. Viking Tomorrow goes balls out (that’s a steam engine reference) from beginning to end.

Robinson and Gilmour offer us a fresh vision of a post-catastrophic future, with uniquely disturbing inhabitants.

There is lots of fighting. Lots. With big axes and flails and many other pointy weapons. Choreographed battles with all kinds of creatures. Humans. Sort-of humans. Monsters. Did I mention lots of fighting? Battles on ATVs. On motorcycles. On speedboats. (O.k., some technology survived.)

The narrative is definitely story-driven. While the authors do try for some character growth with occasional fleeting moments of gruff individual introspection, there’s just not a ton of time for development between all the extremely bloody battles. That’s alright. Viking Tomorrow is unabashedly full-blast action adventure. I’ll look forward to the second in the series.

Jeremy Robinson is best known for his over-the-top action-adventure and kaiju monster novels. In Infinite, he branches successfully into science fiction.

Our protagonist, William Chanokh, been in cryosleep – but with his mind awake – for the last ten years of a long journey. He is a tech-jock, and along with fellow scientists and engineers, he is part of humanity’s last hope of survival. Will and his teammates are on a mission to colonize Kepler 452b, the nearest – relatively – habitable planet to earth.

Unfortunately, there is a snafu: Will is pulled from his cryochamber, murdered by Tom, one of his fellow tech-jocks, and dies. And then comes back to life. And discovers that Tom has assassinated all the remaining crew but one: Will’s secret crush, Capria.

Things deteriorate further when Will realizes that Tom has drastically altered the programming of Galahad, their spaceship, in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways. What follows is an almost boyish romp through outer and inner space. There is a sexy and dangerous Artificial Intelligence, cool robot battles, planetary adventures with weird creatures, and virtual reality thrills – all at faster-than-light travel through the universe.

Infinite is more introspective than Robinson’s usual straightforward action stories. He focuses a bit more on character development – which is a welcome plus – and entertains meditations on the nature of existence. Could we all just be a simulation? Just a piece of programming? And what if we are? Will debates the pointlessness of immortality versus the need to find joy in every day. Robinson himself faced some personal issues that altered his own life perspective while writing this book, and they certainly come through in Will’s existential questions.

Action prevails, however, and Infinite is a fun, fast read. Toss in a nice dose of humor – including a nod to Star Trek – some light romance, and of course, all that action, and you get a great summer escape.